Seducing Down the Door: A Collection 1970 - 1990

JOHN GALE

SEDUCING

DOWN THE DOOR

A COLLECTION 1970-1990

R2 71685

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1 THE PROTEGE ■ John Cal* &
Tarry Riley 2 BIG WHITE CLOUD
3 AMSTERDAM 4 DAYS OF STEAM
5 TEMPER 6 DIXIELAND AND
DIXIE 7 CHILD’S CHRISTMAS
IN WALES 8 PARIS 1919
9 ANDALUCIA 10
IS A MAN’S
FRIEND 11 GUN
KEEP A CLOSE WATCH

13 HEARTBREAK HOTEL

14 DIRTYASS ROCK ‘N’
ROLL 15 GUTS 16 THE
JEWELLER 17 PABLO PICASSO

18 LEAVING IT UP TO YOU

19 CORAL MOON |° MEMPHIS

1 JACK THE RIPPER 2 HEDDA GABLER
3 WALKIN’ THE DOG 4 DEAD OR ALIVE

5 STRANGE TIMES IN CASABLANCA

6 TAKING YOUR LIFE IN YOUR HANDS

7 THOUGHTLESS KIND 8 CHINESE

9 CARIBBEAN SUNSET

10 WAITING FOR THE MAN

11 OOH LA LA 12 EVERYTIME
THE DOGS BARK 13%YING
ON THE VINE ¥' THE SOUL
OF CARMEN MIRANDA

15> ONE WORD - Brian Eno & John Cale
16 CORDOBA - Brian Eno &
John Cale 17 TROUBLE WITH CLASSICISTS
- Lou Reed & John Cale 18 FACES AND
NAMES - Lou Reed & John Cale

ENVOY

FEAR

BEST

12. .

ISBN l-5bfl2h-421-b

8122-71685-2

This Compilation © & © 1994
Rhino Records Inc.,
2) 10635 Santa Monica Blvd.,
Los Angeles, CA 90025,
world inclusive.

Refer to inlays for licensing information.

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c

1 THE PROTEGE

- John Cale & Terry Riley

(John Cale/Terry Riley) b

2 BIG WHITE CLOUD

(John Cale) a

3 AMSTERDAM

(John Cale) A

4 DAYS OF STEAM

(John Cale) D

5 TEMPER

(John Cale) D

6 DIXIELAND AND DIXIE

(John Cale) c

7 CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES

(John Cale) E

8 PARIS 1919

(John Cale) E

9 ANDALUCIA

(John Cale) e

10 FEAR IS A MAN’S
BEST FRIEND

(John Cale) f

0

N

E

11 GUN

(John Cale) f

12 I KEEP A CLOSE WATCH

(John Cale) h

13 HEARTBREAK HOTEL

(Mae Boren Axton/Tommy Durden/
Elvis Presley) G

14 DIRTYASS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

(John Cale) G

15 GUTS

(John Cale) G

16 THE JEWELLER

(John Cale) G

17 PABLO PICASSO

(Jonathan Richman) h

18 LEAVING IT UP TO YOU

(John Cale) h

19 CORAL MOON

(John Cale) H

20 MEMPHIS

(Chuck Berry) i

Album/EP

A- Vintage Violence

(Columbia #1037, 3/25/70)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE & LEWIS
MERENSTEIN

JOHN CALE: vocals, keyboards, guitar;

arranger/conductor on “Big White Cloud”
STAN SZELESTE: keyboards
GARLAND JEFFREYS: guitar, backing vocals
ERNIE CORALLA: guitar
HARVEY BROOKS: bass
SANDY KONIKOFF: drums

B- Church Of Anthrax

(Columbia #30131, 2/10/71)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE & JOHN McCLURE

JOHN CALE: vocals, piano, harpsichord, organ,
guitar, bass, viola

TERRY RILEY: piano, organ, soprano sax
BOBBY COLOMBY: drums
BOBBY GREGG: 2nd drums

r

■ Recorded in Los Angeles, 1971
(Previously unreleased)

PRODUCED BY TED TEMPLEMAN

D The Academy In Peril

(Reprise #2079, 7/19/72)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, piano
DEL “THE BOUNCER” NEWMAN: some
arranging

NOTE: “Temper” is an outtake from these
sessions, first issued on the promotional
compilation Troublemakers
(Warner #PR0 A 857, 1980).

E Paris 1919

(Reprise #2131, 3/73)

PRODUCED BY CHRIS THOMAS

JOHN CALE: vocals, harmonium, guitar, viola

BILL PAYNE: keyboards

LOWELL GEORGE: guitar

WILTON FELDER: bass

RICHIE HAYWARD: drums

CHRIS THOMAS: tambourine

UCLA ORCHESTRA on “Paris 1919”

JOHN CALE: vocal
LOWELL GEORGE: guitar
WILTON FELDER: bass
JIM KELTNER: drums

Sources

F- Fear

(Island #9301, 10/1/74)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, keyboards, guitar, bass

BRIAN ENO: synthesizer

PHIL MANZANERA: guitar

ARCHIE LEGGATT: bass

FRED SMITH: drums

DOREEN CHANTER: backing vocals

IRENE CHANTER: backing vocals

LIZA STRIKE: backing vocals

G Slow Dazzle

(Island #9317, 3/25/75)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, piano, clavinet, organ

BRIAN ENO: synthesizer

CHRIS THOMAS: electric piano, violin

PHIL MANZANERA: guitar

CHRIS SPEDDING: guitar

PAT DONALDSON: bass

GERRY CONWAY: drums

TIM DONALD: drums

GEOFF MULDAUR: harmony vocal on “Guts”

H- Helen Of Troy

(Island [UK] #9350, 11/14/75)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, keyboards, guitar

BRIAN ENO: synthesizer

CHRIS SPEDDING: guitar

PAT DONALDSON: bass

PHIL COLLINS: drums

TIM DONALD: drums

“Coral Moon” was included on some
pressings of Helen Of Troy.

'• Animal Justice (12" EP)

(Illegal [UK] #003, 9/77)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, piano, guitar, viola
BRUCE BRODY: Moog synthesizer
RITCHIE FLIEGLER: lead guitar
CHRIS SPEDDING: lead guitar on “Memphis”
JIMMY BAIN: bass
KEVIN CURRIE: drums

“Jack The Ripper” is an outtake from these
sessions, first issued on the promotional
compilation These People Are Nuts! (I.R.S.
#82010, 1990).

Inset photo of John Cale on opposite side: KATE SIMON
R2 71685 • © 1994 Rhino Records Inc.

R2 71685 JOHN CALE SEDUCING DOWN THE DOOR: A COLLECTION 19701990

WHITE CLOUD

PARIS

'“THE PROTEGE,” “BIG WHITE CLOUD*" and “AMSTERDAM” under license from
Sony Music Special Products, a Division of Sony Music Entertainment Inc. •
"DAYS OF STEAM” and "TEMPER” © 1972 Reprise Records; “DIXIELAND AND
DIXIE” ©1094 Warner Bros. Records Inc.; “CHILD’S CHRISTMAS IN WALES,”
“PARIS 1919," and “ANDALUCIA" ®1973 Reprise Records; "THE SOUL OF
CARMEN MIRANDA" ® 1989 Opal Records; "ONE WORD” and “CORDOBA”
© 1990 Opal Records; "TROUBLE WITH CLASSICISTS” and “FACES AND NAMES”
© 1990 Sire Records; all produced under license from Warner Bros. Records Inc.
• “FEAR IS A MAN'S BEST FRIEND" and “GUN" @1974 Island Records; “I KEEP
A CLOSE WATCH,” "HEARTBREAK HOTEL,” “DIRTYASS ROCK ’N’ ROLL,” “GUTS,"
“THE JEWELLER.” “PABLO PICASSO," "LEAVING IT UP TO YOU,” and “CORAL
MOON”® 1975 Island Records; all under license from PolyGram Special Markets,
a Division of PolyGram Group Distribution, Inc, • "MEMPHIS," ; ©1977
Illegal Records, Ltd. • This Compilation © & © 1994 Rhino Records lnc„ 10635
Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025-4900

R2 71685 JOHN CALE SEDUCING DOWN THE DOOR: A COLLECTION 1970-1990

CAL

D 0 WN

DOOR

# :

A COLLECTION DISC TWO

D

s

c

1 JACK THE RIPPER

(John Cale) I

2 HEDDA GABLER

(John Cale) i

3 WALKIN’ THE DOG

(Rufus Thomas, Jr.) J

4 DEAD OR ALIVE

(John Cale) k

5 STRANGE TIMES IN
CASABLANCA

(John Cale) k

6 TAKING YOUR LIFE IN YOUR
HANDS

(John Cale) l

7 THOUGHTLESS KIND

(John Cale) l

8 CHINESE ENVOY

(John Cale) L

9 CARIBBEAN SUNSET

(John Cale/Larry Sloman) m

10 WAITING FOR THE MAN

(Lou Reed) N

_ Two

11 OOH LA LA

(John Cale/Larry Sloman) n

12 EVERYTIME THE DOGS BARK

(John Cale/Larry Sloman/Dave Young) o

13 DYING ON THE VINE

(John Cale/Larry Sloman) o

14 THE SOUL OF CARMEN
MIRANDA

(John Cale/Brian Eno) p

15 ONE WORD - Brian Eno & John Cale

(Brian Eno/John Cale) R

16- CORDOBA - Brian Eno & John Cale

(Brian Eno/John Cale) R

17 TROUBLE WITH CLASSICISTS

- Lou Reed & John Cale

(Lou Reed/John Cale) Q

18 FACES AND NAMES

- Lou Reed & John Cale

(Lou Reed/John Cale) Q

A L B U

1 Animal Justice (12" EP)

(Illegal [UK] #003, 9/77)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, piano, guitar, viola
BRUCE BRODY: Moog synthesizer
RITCHIE FLIEGLER: lead guitar
CHRIS SPEDDING: lead guitar on “Memphis”
JIMMY BAIN: bass
KEVIN CURRIE: drums

“Jack The Ripper” is an outtake from these
sessions, first issued on the promotional
compilation These People Are Nuts! (I.R.S.
#82010, 1990).

J Sabotage/Live

(Spy/I. R.S. #004, 12/79)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, piano, guitar, fretless
bass, viola

JOE BIDEWELL: keyboards, backing vocals
MARC AARON: lead guitar
GEORGE SCOTT: bass, backing vocals
DOUG BOWNE: drums, backing vocals
DEERFRANCE: percussion, backing vocals

Honi Soit...

(A&M #4849, 3/10/81)

PRODUCED BY MIKE THORNE

M / E P

JOHN CALE: vocals, keyboards, guitar, viola
JIM GOODWIN: keyboards, synthesizer,
backing vocals

STURGIS NIKIDES: guitar, backing vocals
PETER MUNY: bass, backing vocals
ROBERT MEDICI: drums, backing vocals
JOHN GATCHELL: trumpet on “Dead Or Alive’

L Music For A New Society

(Ze/Passport #6019, 8/82)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, keyboards, guitar

ALAN LANIER: guitar

DAVID YOUNG: guitar

JOHN WONDERLING: autoharp

DAVE LICHTENSTEIN: drums

PIPE MAJOR TOM FITZGIBBON: bagpipes

ROBERT ELK: bagpipes

MIKE McLINTOCK: backing vocals

M Caribbean Sunset

(Ze/lsland #8401, 1/84)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals
BRIAN ENO: A.M.S. Pitch Changer
DAVID YOUNG: guitar, backing vocals
ANDY HEERMANNS: bass, backing vocals
DAVE LICHTENSTEIN: drums, boobams

Sources

N- John Cale Comes Alive

(Ze/lsland #8402, 9/84)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, keyboards, guitar
DAVID YOUNG: guitar, vocals
ANDY HEERMANS: bass, vocals
DAVE LICHTENSTEIN: drums, Simmons, Linn

0 Artificial Intelligence

(Beggar’s Banquet/PVC [UK] #8947,
9/6/85)

PRODUCED BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, keyboards
JAMES YOUNG: keyboards
DAVID YOUNG: guitar
GRAHAM DOWD ALL: percussion
GILL O’ DONOVAN: backing vocals
SUZIE O’LIST: backing vocals

p

r Words For The Dying

(Opal/Warner Bros. #26024, 9/89)
PRODUCED BY BRIAN ENO

JOHN CALE & BRIAN ENO: all instruments
NELL CATCHPOLE: additional viola & violin

Q Songs For Drella

(Sire #26140, 4/90)

PRODUCED BY LOU REED & JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, keyboards, viola
LOU REED: vocals, guitars

R- Wrong Way Up

(Opal/Warner Bros. #26421, 10/90)
PRODUCED BY BRIAN ENO; CO-PRODUCED
BY JOHN CALE

JOHN CALE: vocals, Scarlatti piano,

fairground organ, bass, timpani on “One
Word”; vocals, keyboards, strings, viola
on “Cordoba”

BRIAN ENO: vocals, rhythm bed, guitar,
treatments on “One Word”; rhythm bed,
harmony vocals on ’’Cordoba”

ROBERT AHWAI: rhythm guitar on “One Word’
RONALD JONES: bass drum, snare drum on
“One Word”

Inset photo of John Cale on opposite side: HUGH BROWN
R2 71685 • © 1994 Rhino Records Inc.

R2 71685 JOHN CALE SEDUCING DOWN THE DOOR: A COLLECTION 19701990

oo

si

JACK THE RIPPER

HEDDA GABLER
3 WALKIN’ THE DOG 4 DEAD OR ALIVE
5 STRANGE TIMES IN CASABLANCA 6 TAKING
YOUR LIFE IN YOUR HANDS 7 THOUGHTLESS
KIND 8 CHINESlP ENVOY 9 CARIBBEAN
I SUNSET 10 WAITING FOR THE MAN 11 OOH LA

YTIME THE DOGS BARK

14- tue cny|_ Qp

3 DYING ON THE VINE *4' THE lOUl!

W0^>-

Brian Eno l

John Cale

CORDOBA - Brian Eno & John Cale

J7- TROUBLE WITH CLASSICISTS |toi Reed & John
Cele 18 FACES AND NAMES - Lou Reed & John Cale

“JACK THE RIPPER” and “HEDDA GABLER” ©1977 Illegal Records, Ltd.;
"WALKIN’ THE DOG" © 1979 I.R.S., Inc.; "TAKING YOUR LIFE IN YOUR HANDS,”
"THOUGHTLESS KIND,” and “CHINESE ENVOY” © 1982 Ze Records; "CARIBBEAN
SUNSET,” "WAITING FOR THE MAN,” and “OOH LA LA” ©1984 Ze Records; all
licensed from John Cale Music, Irtc. • “DEAD OR ALI^E” and "STRANGE TIMES IN
CASABLANCA” ©1981 A&M Records, Inc., licensed from A&M Records, Inc. •
“EVERYTIME THE DOGS BARK” and “DYING ON THE VINE” © 1985 PVC Records,
licensed from Beggar’s Banquet Records. • This Compilation © & © 1994 Rhino
Records Inc., 10635 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025-4900

R2 71685 JOHN CALE SEDUCING DOWN THE DOOR: A COLLECTION 1970-1990

JOHN CALE

SEDUCING

DOWN THE DOOR

<$ T

I’d taken the
opportunity

when I left the band to
really use it to my advantage.

And I realized if I

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didn’t take advantage

of it, that f would condemn myself to really just

being a Velvet Underground person, and that was
the end of it. But I consider the Velvet
Underground to be as much my brainchild

as Lou’s [Reed].

Sl*e Jlettr ffork Stitts

Y> SEPTEMBER 11, 1963.

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A few years ago, John Cale collaborated with his old Velvet Underground partner Lou Reed on a
song called “Trouble With Classicists,” which dealt with Andy Warhol’s opinions about visual artists
and their sometimes limited ideas. But intentionally or not, the tune also held meaning for Cale’s own
relationship with musical tradition. John Cale is a writer/singer/instrumentalist/producer who never
could be confined to one school or genre. He might be called a renegade classicist, among many other
things.

Ask a well-versed rock fan about Cale, and his status as a cofounder of The Velvet Underground
is likely to come to mind first. But his role in the Velvets’ extraordinarily influential career is far from the
be-all and end-all of his creative contributions. There have been many more fascinating chapters in his
story since those notes from the Underground of 25 years ago.

By any measure, John Cale is an unlikely rock figure. His academic background seemed to point
him toward a “serious music” career, and he has kept company with such cultural icons as John Cage,
Andy Warhol, and Sam Shepard. And yet there’s another side to this intense, erudite Welshman —
he’s been a punk cult hero, a manic bandleader, a purveyor of “dirtyass rock ’n’ roll.” His profile as a
composer has a Jekyll-and-Hyde look: He’s written symphonic pieces, minimalist experiments, tender
love ballads, bloodthirsty rants. The contradictions go on and on.

This anthology offers a survey of Cale’s recordings from the first two decades of his solo career.
If there are paradoxes in this body of work, chalk it up to an artist’s privilege. |l is formidable range of
talents has been matched by his refusal to stay within the bounds of the safe and the conventional.
Whatever his struggles and frustrations, the troubles of a timid classicist have not been his.

John Cale was born March 9, 1942, in Garnant, South Wales. His father was a coal miner, his
mother a schoolteacher. John grew up playing the piano and took up the viola as a school orchestra
member. His talents were soon recognized: while still a preteen he gave a recital of an original

composition over the BBC. He also showed a rebellious streak early on — looking back, he has
described his musical growth as a process of “basically unlearning everything I was being taught in
schools.” At this point, rock ’n’ roll wasn’t a vehicle for his rebel instincts, although he did listen to it
on Radio Luxembourg as a youngster.

As a student at London University’s Goldsmiths’ College from 1960 to 1963, Cale was drawn to
the challenging music of John Cage, La Monte Young, and other experimental composers. With the help
of Cornelius Cardew, a composer who taught at Goldsmiths’, he organized a festival of avant-garde
works on campus.

Another key influence was Fluxus, a German/American troupe of musicians, poets, and visual
artists who brought a zany, neo-Dadaist spirit to their mixed-media events. During one piece, a Fluxus
composer nailed down each key on a piano in succession; another whitewashed a piano onstage.

“The Fluxus pieces erased the boundaries between performance and life,” Cale recalls. “They
were the originators of performance art, and they really had a lot to do with what went on in The Velvet
Underground because in rock ’n’ roll you still had the same situation of performing onstage. What
became interesting to me was to break down that fixed attitude toward life onstage. There should be
stuff outside the building, outside the world that we’re in, that should come in and be involved in that.”
Both the Velvets’ abrasive live shows and Cale’s crazed stage persona as a solo artist owe something
to the Fluxus style of audience-taunting lunacy.

Cale was eager to pursue his musical goals in America. “I met Aaron Copland, and he got
Leonard Bernstein to give a scholarship to study in the United States. So I went there in the summer of
’63 and studied atTanglewood [in Lenox, Massachusetts]; the Boston University Orchestra runs a sum¬
mer school there.”

The story goes that Cale left Tanglewood because Copland feared for the safety of his pianos.

Photo: © 1993 RONN SPENCER

From there, he went to New York City to participate in an 18-hour piano recital under the guidance of
John Cage. He elected to remain in New York and, in the fall of ’63, joined forces with La Monte Young,
a composer with ties to Fluxus and one of the pioneers of minimalist music. A jazz musician in Los
Angeles during the ’50s, Young became known for composing pieces that involved improvisation based
upon one-sentence instructions (e.g., “draw a straight line and follow it”). Young’s rigorous approach to
exploring repetition and intonation would prove to be a decisive influence on Cale.

Young enlisted Cale to be the viola player in a group referred to variously as the Theater Of
Eternal Music or The Dream Syndicate (from which the 1980s group The Dream Syndicate took their
name). This unit concentrated on the possibilities of sustained, droning tones, which would later
become a vital element in the Velvet Underground sound. (While The Dream Syndicate made a number
of home recordings from 1963 to ’65, none have been officially released thus far, due to disagree¬
ments over composition credit.) 5.

Young and his partner Marion Zazeela remember Cale during those days as a serious, some¬
what reserved young man who was eager to contribute to their group. “We became very close,” says
Young. “He put an enormous amount into the group. I remember him bringing books on Indian music
theory to our rehearsals, and experimenting on Eastern instruments. I was very proud of the work we
did together.”

It was during his tenure with The Dream Syndicate that Cale first crossed paths with singer/gui¬
tarist Lou Reed, in late 1964. At the time, Reed was working as a staff songwriter with Pickwick
Records, churning out off-kilter variations of rock hits. Cale and fellow Syndicate member Tony Conrad
were recruited to play with Reed as members of The Primitives, promoting a weird dance number called
“The Ostrich.” Reed and Cale struck up a friendship, and out of it came a band like none before. With
the addition of guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Angus MacLise (soon replaced by Maureen

Tucker), The Velvet Underground emerged in December 1965. Cale left The Dream Syndicate and
entered the alien realms of rock ’n’ roll.

Reams of copy have been written about The Velvet Underground’s undeniable impact on pop
music into the present day. To summarize its life and times very briefly, the band came under the guid¬
ance of pop art avatar Andy Warhol in early 1966, who paired them with German actress/singer Nico
and put them on tour as part of his Exploding Plastic Inevitable road show. From the start, the Velvets’
music was an unprecedented mixture of gritty poetry, bare-bones pop songcraft, and jarring avant-garde
sonic ideas. The last element came from Cale’s presence, and his contributions wei^nothing less than
history-making. His use of sustained drone on the electric viola brought him particular attention.

Such a volatile batch of talents couldn’t remain stable for long, Cale participated in the Velvet

• 1967) LPs

lir^ of ’68. i^m lMe^rsDective. ^he^reasons for his departure
were as follows: "There were resentments that grew out of being a road band, and what you had to do

\

for jh|£C||ss. Obviously, the need |or!commercial siiccess was nagging away at Lou. He felt that the
ver to it all was in pretty songs, which is what happened when I left. I thought there was room for
etty songs add being able to make great, grandiose musical statements with them. And he got fed up

Underground And Nico (Verve, March 1967^jo &J/Vhite Light/White Heat (Verve, Decerpber :
before exiting the band by the beginning of ’68. From his perspective, the reasons for his

The Velvets went on to make tw|yttb?e siidio albums Without Cale, then sputtered out in 1973.

\ JT j I j \

After leaving the band, Cale initially took on production assignments from Elektra Records. His work
with Marble Index (1969) is ornate and Gothic, while The Stooges (1969) found him bring¬

ing out the crude, neurotic power of Iggy Pop’s group. What these two albums had in common was a

Jr 1

purity of artistic focus and a certain extremeness of mood. These qualities would be the hallmarks of
Cale’s forthcoming work as a solo artist as well.

One of the
earliest
publicity
photos,
circa 1971.

Signing with CBS Masterworks (the label’s classical division), Cale released Vintage Violence in
1970. An album of diverse pop sounds and lyric ideas, it bears the influence of its era. “I was making
use of the tools at hand,” he says. “I liked the group we had — it was modeled on The Band. Those
musicians all knew Garth Hudson and Ronnie Hawkins and people from Woodstock. So those guys
came from a different background entirely from the one I was used to." Among them was the late Stan
Szelest, an exceptional rock piano player who went on to join The Band in the 1980s. The core group
for the sessions was singer/songwriter Garland Jeffreys’ band Grinderswitch, credited on the album as
“Penguin.”

“Big White Cloud,” a gospel-tinged ballad, was released as a single; Cale describes it as “kind of
Phil Spectorish." “Amsterdam” dated from his earliest solo songwriting efforts and conveys a naive,
wistful mood. Overall, the album is held together with intriguing, multilayered arrangements, often veer¬
ing into country-rock territory. And while the “violence” mentioned in the title isn’t all that overt, such
songs as “Ghost Story” do betray a noticeable morbidity around their edges.

Vintage Violence reintroduced Cale as a sophisticated pop song craftsman — but his next project
was of a very different nature. Church Of Anthrax (1971) was a collaboration with avant-garde composer
Terry Riley, who shared with Cale a past association with La Monte Young. During the ’60s he had
gained renown as an electronic music innovator and was beginning to attract attention in the rock world
as well. John McClure, the head of CBS Masterworks, thought that the pairing of Cale and Riley in the
studio was a natural. “ Church Of Anthrax was really John’s idea of making Terry more commercial,”
Cale says. “He wanted to show that he was viable and could reach a wider audience."

Cale describes the almost entirely instrumental Anthrax as “coming out of that school that Terry
founded and that Philip Glass is now the head of. It’s minimalist, yes, but Terry has this great sense of
humor, and it comes out in his music — it’s bubbly.” Anthrax does lace its more abstract moments

with a good-humored spirit. The album is built around the two composers’ piano styles, with a definite
R&B/jazz element creeping in. (Riley had toured as a ragtime pianist before plunging into the avant-
garde.) The propulsive rhythms on the album were courtesy of drummers Bobby Colomby (from Blood,
Sweat & Tears) and Bobby Gregg (a veteran of tours; with Dylan and The Hawks), who played off of one
another. “The Protege,” a funky twin-piano number, displays the album’s more accessible side.

Besides recording his own albums, Cale also handled quadrophonic remixes for other artists
(including Barbra Streisand) during his time with CBS Masterworks. Then, in 1971 came an offer of an
A&R position with Warner Bros, on the West Coast. During his two-year tenure with Warner, Cale took
on a number of production assignments, including such unlikely choices as country-pop singer Jennifer
Warnes and the quirky trio Chunky, Novi & Ernie. He also produced a second album with Nico
( Desertshore ) and demos for The Modern Lovers, a Velvets-inspired combo led by the inimitable
Jonathan Richman.

Cale resumed his own recording career at Warner with The Academy In Peril (1972), a symphonic
work rooted in 19th-century European influences. “At the time, I was trying to explain to Warner promo¬
tion that it was kind of the history of England in music, which they found less than fascinating,” he
says. Whether rife with marketing possibilities or not, Academy is worth a close listen — the album
plays classical traditions against exotic touches (slide guitars, odd percussion) to sometimes charm¬
ing, sometimes unsettling effect.

“Days Of Steam,” the single, has a buoyant, carnival-like feel. It was later included on the sound¬
track to the Andy Warhol/Paul Morrissey film Heat Says Cale: “I made a deal with Andy that he could
use ‘Days Of Steam’ in Heat , and in return he did the album cover for Academy."

Some of the music recorded for Academy didn’t make it on the album. One such piece was
“Temper,” a piano improvisation that Cale describes as “in the Romantic tradition, with some Brahms

there.” It eventually surfaced on the 1980 Warner Bros, compilation album Troublemakers.

12.

Cale’s second album for Warner proved to be a milestone: the lyrical, luminous Paris 1919

le’s best album, an opinion be
, and it’s not asfbair-raising as,

(1973). This work is considered by Many
doesn’t disagree with: “It’s got the Hate
say, Music For A New Society — not asatsfurbirf

(Prior to recording Paris, Cale hadM^atisfy a contract^ obligation with CBS for two singles. One
of the pair of songs he recorded was Dixieland And Dix

nr

most of the musicians who later appeared

unreleased until now. For the recor
Hairiest Band Of All.”)

Paris was an outstanding creatil

duced by Ted Templeman and featuring
III, Randy Newmanesque tune has gone

mething called “The Biggest, Loudest,

* in several ways. The sound of.tbe album remains unique, com¬
bining masterful string arrangements with a subtle blend of rock, folk, and European pop elements.
Little Feat — at that time still a cult band — provided a number of the session players, including gui¬
tarist Lowell George, keyboardist Bill Payne, and drummer Richie Hayward.

The rnix of musicians was interesting, Cale remembers: “Wilton Felder from The Jazz Crusaders
was the bass player on Paris. He’s a deacon in a church, and he did all of the sessions while reading
the Bible. What was funny was, Lowell stayed away from him during the sessions, and slowly as the
days wore on, he started talking to him. And damn it, on the last day, if I didn’t walk into the studio and
see Lowell parting with $20 for a Bible! I just laughed.”

The songs on Paris seem to be intentionally linked together, but Cale says it isn’t so: “They
sound that way because of [producer] Chris Thomas. They were written on guitar, which I’m not expert
on, but because the riffs were intricate, they had to be given a certain amount of respect in the mix.
There was an effort made to have the quietest instrument be the loudest one, and to give the whole

Photos: KATE SIMON

album a wrap-around feeling so that one thing doesn’t stand out from the rest.”

One unifying aspect of the album is its oblique, evocative lyrics. Cale often uses words for sound
pnd texture as much for literal meaning here. “It’s weird,” he says. “English is a foreign language to
lause I learned it wh^i Ijjflji seven years old at school. [He spoke Welsh at home|p wa

always fascinated with the way Americans use language differently. There is a certain mellifluous qual
ty to language in America that isn’t quite as hard as in T.S. Eliot’s work, or whatever.”

“Child’s Christmas In Wales” is a good example of this. To a hymnlike melody, Cale mysteriously
sings: “A belt to hold Columbus too, perimeters of nails/Perceived the Mama’s golden touch/Good
neighbors were we an.” “‘Child#s Christmas’ waUf’v’ery much the old sensibility of South Wales, but it s
basically a song of exile,” he offers in semi-explanation. (The song’s title is a reference to Dylan
Thomas, whose work was a strong influence on Cale’s lyric writing.)

Paris 1919' s title number has the genteel eeriness of a surrealist landscape. It stems from
Cale’s self-confessed Francophilia: “A lot of the problems in Europe really came from 1919, from the
Treaty of Versailles. I always thought it was a drag that what had been done in 1919 hadn’t had more
forethought to it. .it created the setup for another war to happen.”

“Andatucia,” the third Par/S tune included here, is an exquisite ballad, as well as the first pop
song Cale had ever written by himself. The murmuring steel guitars on the track are a trademark
arrangement touch of his. “They’re just begging to be used as an orchestral instrument,” he says. “You
could do a beautiful string piece with a whole bunch of steel guitars.”

Though it received enthusiastic reviews, Paris 1919 did not bring Cale a commercial break¬
through. Part of the problem may have been that his twin roles as recording artist and A&R man worked
against each other: “I’d more or less tried to drive myself away from the Velvets and use Warner Bros,
as a route to bigger and better things as a producer. But I underestimated the importance of being a

performer and a creative musician, and maybe there was something about not really wanting to be a
company body, something that demanded more of me than I could really follow through with.”

Switching to Island Records and moving to the U.K., he concentrated on establishing himself as a
rock performer onstage as well as on record. Fear (1974) raised the intensity level of his music notice¬
ably, with assistance from Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera and synthesizer magus Brian Eno. The
album served to introduce the maniacal Cale persona mat reached greater extremes on subsequent
albums.

“That was a deliberate thing,” he says of his shift toward a harder sound. “It came out of being
suddenly back onstage; l hadn’t done that since the Velvets. You get involved in rock ’n’ roll, beating it
out all the time, and you get that aggressive side going.”

“Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend” is an early example of Cale’s patented brand of rock-as-psychodra-
ma — its paranoid theme is driven home as the performance disintegrates into screams and fractured

m

guitar notes. Even more ferocious is “Gun,” an extended piece that tells the story of two New York

% J# ■ ■ ■ ■

detectives in hard-boiled pulp fiction terms. “Phil played the guitar solo on ‘Gun/* Cale says. “Then it
was run through Brian’s synthesizer; one guy didn’t know what the other was doing. I wanted to end up
with something that would be the equivalent of [The Velvet Underground’s] ‘Sister Ray.’” (“Gun" would
later be covered by Siouxsie & The Banshees on their 1987 album Through The Looking Glass.)

In support of Fear, Cale put together a killer touring band that included Chris Spedding on lead
guitar, Pat Donaldson on bass, Tim Donald on drums, and Paris 1919 producer Chris Thomas on key¬
boards. “I’d always wanted to go onstage and use a band that was able to improvise, and I got one.
We’d play a verse and a chorus from a song off the album, and then we’d be on to something else,
make up a whole new song onstage. And we’d pull antics, like hanging upside down on a stepladder or
turning out all the lights in the club. All that grew out of finally having a working entity to relate to.”

20.

Cale began to adopt a menacing costume: “I’d wear this fencing outfit — the first layer was
shades, then there was a metal braided scarf over it, and then on top of that were a pair of green ski
goggles, and on top of that was a ski mask. And during the show all of that would come off, until you
ended with just shades.”

0 "The shows were very exciting,” Chris Spedding recalls. “There was one funny thing thatl
pened when we played this open-air festival in a Roman amphitheater in the south of France. John took

it into his head to run maniacally across the stage, and then he ran out into the parking lot past the
security guy, and the guy wouldn’t let him back in. So I played a very long guitar solo that gradually drib¬
bled into nothing, and meanwhile John was having this big fight with this French guy who didn’t know
who he was. He never made it back to finish the show.”

Cale’s touring group plays on Slow Dazzle (1975), an inspired revision of pop music formulas.
Cale was able to both embrace and subvert the conventions of rock ’n’ roll on this album. Case in
point: his hellacious cover of “Heartbreak Hotel,” which presented this Elvis standard as a literal hor¬
ror story. “It was there in the song in the first place,” he points out. “I had this great riff, and it was
just extraordinary that it worked with those lyrics. You can tell that each of the verses was written by a
different person. To me they sort of illustrate this urban scene, these women sitting in windows who
read your palm, that kind of vision of a love affair from one of them.”

Cale’s own songwriting was taking a long walk down Lonely Street into some very dark regions.
“Guts” is sung from the viewpoint of a gun-toting crazy who blows away his wife’s lover “like parrot
shit” and closes with the pithy observation: “You’ll notice how the waster and the wasted get to look
like one another in the end.” “It was meant to be draconian,” says Cale of the song’s intent. “Really
‘right-wing loony.’”

The rest of Slow Dazzle's cuts ran the gamut from R&B-inflected rockers like “Dirtyass Rock ‘N’

Ills? JCVVvlIUI

1 m *i m m

Roll” to "The Jeweller,” a droll account of tissue mutation reminiscent of “The Gift” on

To

Light/ White Heat.

While preparing for another European tour, Cale recorded Helen Of Troy (1975) with Spedding,
ponaldsgn, and Donald. This effort stretched the mania of the first two Island albums almost to the
breaking point. "Sometimes you can just get out on a limb,” Cale says. “Some of the stuff on Helen Of
Troy was pretty much out there.” One track, “Leaving It Up To You,” disturbed Island enough to cause
them to initially delete it from the album, substituting the much milder “Coral Moon.” Among other
things, Cale makes reference to the infamous Sharon Igte murder case in , “Leaving It Up To You,” rais¬
ing the discomfort level for some listeners a bit too far.

For his part, Cale felt rushed in making the album and was not satisfied with all of its tracks. By
his standards, his recording of Jonathan Richman’s skewed “Pablo Picasso” lacked some of the
impact that it had as a live encore number. One Helen Of Troy track that did become a Cale standard
was “I Keep A Close Watch,” a yearning ballad that he would rerecord on 1982’s Music For A New

Soc^m

iesides the three albums listed above, Island also put out June 1st 1974 (1974), which featured
ed live in tandem with Kevin Ayers, Brian Eno, and Nico at London’s Rainbow Theatre.

After the 1977 release of Guts, a U.S.-only compilation of his Island recordings, Cale was label¬
less again. But he could take some comfort in the success of Patti Smith’s Horses album (1975),
which bears Cale’s spare, clean production stamp. He also toured the States with Smith, opening her
shows with piano-pounding solo sets.

Cale decided to make New York City his home base and began to work with a shifting cast of

young local musicians. ui left England just as the punk movement was coming into its own. Whe
Spedding and I were doing those shows, people like Johnny Rotten were ppm ing to see us. I went 1

Photos: KATE SIMON

24.

New York and worked with Patti, then went back to London with these New York musicians who were
entirely different in sensibility. The songs we were playing had too many changes, and everybody looked
wrong.” It was during an English concert foray that the notorious animal sacrifice incident took place —

Cale killed a chicken onstage voodoo-style, prompting half of his vegetarian band to quit.

Despite such unfortunate episodes, Cale did accomplish some positive work in ’77. Helping
Miles Copeland to launch Illegal Records, he released the Animal Justice EP, which contained a viola-
driven version of Chuck Berry’s “Memphis” and the sardonic ballad “Hedda Gabler.” The latter song
refers indirectly to Anita Bryant and her antigay stance in the ’70s. Participating in these sessions were
guitarist Ritchie Fliegler, bassist Jimmy Bain, drummer Kevin Currie, and synthesizer player Bruce Brody
(who later did stints with the Patti Smith Group and Lone Justice), with Chris Spedding contributing
some uncredited guitar on “Memphis” as well.

Another track recorded around this time was “Jack The Ripper,” which Cale decided not to 25,
release because it reminded him too much of The Kinks’ “Sunny Afternoon.” In 1990, this chipper mur¬
der ditty turned up on the IRS Records compilation These People Are Nuts.

Many punk rockers acknowledged Cale and the Velvets as major influences during the late ’70s.

This was underscored by Cale’s role as producer on early efforts by Squeeze, Sham 69, Menace, and
other punk/new wave acts. The time seemed perfect for an assault on the American market; toward
that end, Cale founded his own label, Spy Records, which signed a distribution deal with IRS. Spy ini¬
tially released a few singles by other artists (including legendary rock critic Lester Bangs) as Cale
geared up for his first album in four years.

Assembling yet another combo of youthful New York players, he embarked on his first serious
American tour in 1979. “We crossed the country a couple of times,” says Joe Bidewell, the keyboardist
in this road band, “once in a station wagon and once in a van. We were definitely doing it without any

fancy trappings. It was in the punk spirit of, ‘Let’s go for it any way we can.”' Also in Cale’s group were
guitarist Marc Aaron, bassist George Scott, drummer Doug Bowne, and a wispy-voiced female singer
named Deerfrance.

The songs Cale was writing and performing were mostly harsh social commentaries, steeped in
the excesses of a rock ’n’ roll lifestyle. Sabotage/ Live (1979) documents his sound at the turn of the
decade in raw, gory form. Recorded at CBGBs (the epicenter of New York punk), the album’s apocalyp¬
tic mood is summed up by the nuclear mushroom cloud photo on its cover. While much of the music is
intentionally blunt and brutal, there are some imaginative arrangement ideas here. A remake of Rufus
Thomas Jr.’s “Walkin’ The Dog” turns into a bestial romp thanks to Cale’s grunting fretless bass work.
Animal justice indeed. (Some of the songs Cale was doing live in ’79 and ’80 that remain unreleased
— such as “Rape” and “Fucking The Neighbor’s Wife” — were even more confrontational than the
26. batch on Sabotage.)

Cale was being hailed as a godfather of new wave rock in many quarters, which may have led
A&M Records to sign him and release his next album, Honi Soit ... (1981). A fresh crew of New York
rockers backed him this time: guitarist Sturgis Nikides, bassist Peter Muny, keyboardist Jim Goodwin,
and drummer Robert Medici.

The phrase "honi soit qui mal y pense” is the source of the album title; it’s the motto of the
Royal Order of the Garter, found on all official British documents, and translates as “Evil to him who

nMHWHM SMB

evil thinks.” There’s definitely some evildoing depicted in the songs here, including “Dead Or Alive,”
released as a single. "It was really about someone who was hassling and stalking me and my wife at

m n mi iiiiiife. m m nn nn h ^^jgpfr

the time, says Cale of this upbeat yet ominous rock tune. “It’s describing the sort of person who

or you’re alive.

dlita

nprovised It

o

hie sins, recited by Cale

■

28.

Left to right: unknown , Jay Dee Daugherty (drums),
John, Chris Spedding, and Judy Nylon

Photos: HUGH BROWN

within a swirling synthesized vortex: “I love the atmosphere of that song. There’s something about the
way the words sit in the track — it’s really telling a story.”

Honi Soit was an attempt by Cale to deal with the ’80s rock marketplace on his own terms. It was
also the first time he had chosen to work with an outside producer since Paris 1919. Mike Thorne —
who also produced Soft Cell, among others — gave the album a very contemporary sonic sheen. Cale
describes him as a “dry Oxford rationalist. He’s a physicist, so I said, ‘You gotta show me how to build
a nuclear weapon.’ So he scratched his head and said, ‘Well, we’re gonna need a few things...’”

H-bombs may not have been in the budget, but A&M did end up spending a good sum of money
on Honi Soit. Unfortunately, the sales were less than spectacular, and Cale parted company with the
label.

Cale began to edge away from his Sabotage-era screaming commando image after Honi Soit.
Looking back on that period, he muses: “It seemed to be right at the time, but that kind of craziness
was unsustainable. You certainly find out what an insatiable hunger people have for watching others
decay in front of their eyes. If you portray yourself as being someone who takes risks, then they’re
never satisfied. I don’t know if they expected too much, it’s just that I got tired of it.”

Music For A New Society (1982) takes on some risks of a different sort. Veering radically away
from the aggressive rock attack of Sabotage and Honi Soit, this song collection sounds like the work of
a soul in torment. The music’s mood of quiet hysteria frames a set of stark, grim lyrics (a number of
which were contributed by playwright Sam Shepard and John’s wife, Rise). The raving war cries of the
last two albums are replaced by more subdued, melancholy vocals on Cale’s part. For all its bleakness,
New Society was probably Cale’s best-realized album since Slow Dazzle, at once compelling and har¬
rowing.

Appearing in the midst of the Reagan and Thatcher years, New Society was at least indirectly a

reflection of those times. “There was definitely a comment on the ’80s in there," Cale says. “I
remember that I was always discussing political situations with the people I was involved with on that
record.” Whatever relevance the songs have to politics is filtered through very intimate portrayals of
loss, remorse, self-hatred, and the loathing of life itself. A feel-good record this isn’t.

Cale had intended to record New Society for Ze Records as a solo project, but it evolved into
something else. “I went in to do an album in the vein of [Nico’s] Marble Index — the idea was to write
all the songs, then arrange the tracks with these independent parts around a central pillar of chord

changes, and then take the pillar away so that you just have these floating parts. Some of it happened

jB fit IIP jH ys mTmi

that way, but a lot of it was written in the studio, and you can tell there’s a certain pull going on from
trying to think of what’s coming up.”

“Taking Your Life In Your Hands” was among the songs that took shape while the tape was

gr. It was one of those tabloid ideas.”
really has more to do with The Velvet
UnSIrg^jncfTOn anffffiffi else, and with your^Ws^ant^Sal trollntleHress. But it’s still saying,

t ‘Those were the best! of times.’ You’re better off thinking of them that way than really getting some-

M g§ jpJ| ■

Pj thing up your nose about it.” Snatches of laughter, ghostly drum tappings, and a ticking metronome
add to the claustrophobic atmosphere. I

“Chinese Envoy” is a shadowy vignette, suggestive of Paris 1919' s nostalgic mysteries. Cale
recalls that the song was started in Arizona during the Sabotage days, then revised for this album.

The New Society sessions led to the formation of another backup group, which included guitarist
Dave Young, bassist Andy Heermanns, and drummer Dave Lichtenstein. They were on hand for the
recording of Caribbean Sunset (1984), a palpably lighter album than Calebs preceding one. He recalls it
as yet another departure point: “That one was on Island, so we were back together again and

rolling. Cale sums up its stoi

■rl mwk 1 II

“Thoughtless Kind” h

:her has killed the f<

mtrm Til §§■■1

ersonal significance:

■

continuing from where we had left off.” The cover shot of John relaxing on the beach seems fitting;
this disc found him taking a breather from the hostility and brooding that had come to typify his
work. A few tracks (like "Villa Albani”) were even aimed at the Euro-dance crowd.

Caribbean Sunset’s title song is one of the album’s moodier numbers, dressed up in an arrange¬
ment that sounds more Parisian than West Indian. Cale’s old cohort Brian Eno assisted with this one:
“I called him up and said, ‘I’ve got four tracks at the end of the board saved for you. Come in around
noon, and I'll see you at four.' So he showed up with his traveling-man’s briefcase with a synthesizer
inside, an AMS Pitch Changer. When I came back, he’d done the rhythm track of ‘Caribbean Sunset’
and a bunch of other stuff.”

CalO' was road-testing his new band in early *84, reworking the Sabotage material into more
refined form. He was particularly pleased with guitarist Young’s performances: “Dave could play any¬
thing, and he was great onstage, yet very unassuming.” The strength of these shows led to the release
of John Cale Comes Alive (Ze/lsland, 1984), recorded in concert at The Lyceum in London.

One of the highlights of Comes Alive is a jaunty version of “Waiting For The Wan,” which Cale
first recorded some 18 years earlier with The Velvet Underground on their debut album. He’d been
including this Lou Reed-composed tune in his sets for several years: "That song was used as a plat¬
form to start talking about (Chilean dictator) Augusto Pinochet and all sorts of craziness. It went off
into, ‘You go down to Chile and you say, “Augusto, have a cup of coffee....'” And the whole point was
to invite someone to be poisoned. But it would also be screamed and a lot of different things would
happen.” (In 1993, Cale was’pleasantly surprised when Reed asked him to sing “Waiting For The Man”
on the Velvet Underground’s European reunion tour.)

Comes Alive also Included two new studio tracks; one of them was “Ooh La La,” a zany number
that cast Cale in the role of a continental gigolo. Says he, “It was a comedy song that was meant to be

iSiii

cale

TUBS. MAY 8
KEYSTONE
BERKELEY
9PM $4

Left to right: George Scott, Doug Bowne, Deerfrance, Mark Aarons, Peter Muny,
and John

a European single. I also did a version for England with these girls doing the ‘Double Dutch’ on it [along
the lines of Malcolm McLaren’s 1983 Afro-hip-hop album, Duck Rock]. I put a really Spike Jonesish
vocal on it, totally overblown, but it never came out.” Dave Young is the Englishman nattering in the
background, by the way.

"Caribbean Sunset” and “Ooh La La” were both cowritten by Cale with lyricist Larry “Ratso”
Sloman, executive editor of National Lampoon and, most recently, collaborator on DJ Howard Stern’s
literary efforts. “Larry is really excellent with words,” says Cale of his mid-’80s writing partner. “We’d
start with a rhythm or something but no melody, and then we’d sit down and write these lyrics very fast.

But they’d end up very coherent.”

Cale and Sloman cowrote all but one of the songs on Artificial Intelligence (Beggars
Banquet/PVC, 1985). This album followed another project with Nico, Camera Obscura (1985), which
36. proved to be the last studio recording she made before her 4eath in 1988. Cale paired Camera
Obscura players James Young (keyboards) and Graham Dowdall (percussion) with guitarist Dave Young
from his Comes Alive band for Artificial Intelligence. The resulting sound is heavy on funkified rhythms
and cool keyboard gloss, matching the furtive, threatening imagery of the song lyrics.

Tracks like “Everytime The Dogs Bark” plumbed the same dangerous depths as Sabotage, but
with more finesse. “I loved that song,” Cale recalls. “If it had been recorded five years earlier, it
would’ve been more frenetic. But in this case, it was very controlled and funky.” The same was true of
“Dying On The Vine,” a film noir-style number that offers a tip of the hat to Beat Generation sage
William S. Burroughs. (Appropriately, Cale would later contribute music to Burroughs’ 1990 spoken- |
word album Dead City Radio.)

After the release of Artificial Intelligence, Cale took a four-year hiatus from making albums for
both artistic and personal reasons. “That album was about it for me as far as that kind of writing goes.

i^Ae

With Andy Warhol & Nico
in New York at a “ Free
the Boat People Benefit "

Photos. KATE SIMON

I’d been collaborating with Larry and I really wanted to go back and write some stuff on my own. It was
time to figure out a better way of working, to back off and reassess everything.” There was something
else that encouraged him to change course in life — with the birth of daughter Eden in 1985, John had
become a father for the first time.

Family and heritage were surely on Cale’s mind when he conceived “The Falklands Suite,” which
set a number of Dylan Thomas poems to his own classically based compositions. Solemn and evoca¬
tive, these pieces reestablished his bonds with both European musical traditions and his Welsh
upbringing. Under the aegis of Brian Eno’s new Opal Records label, he recorded the suite with the
Gosteleradio Orchestra of Symphonic and Popular Music in Moscow. These recordings were ultimately
released on Words For The Dying (Opal/Warner Bros., 1989), which also included the additional sym¬
phonic pieces “Songs Without Words I & U” and a synth-pop tune, “The Soul Of Carmen Miranda.”

40. The bittersweet, ethereaPfearmen Miranda” was an encouraging combination of Cale and Eno’s

songwriting talents. “It was always in The back of i my mind to ceffaborate with Brian on something or
other,” John says. “And I think it was in his mind too. We were just sitting around when we got this
idea, and then when we ended up in the studio we both simultaneously zeroed in on the lyrics. We got
the whole thing quickly. It was exciting and productive, and when it happened I was very happy and I
wanted to do some more.”

This positive experience led to the Cale/Eno collaborative album Wrong Way Up (Opal/Warner
Bros., 1990). The pairing of these idiosyncratic auteurs had some understandably strained moments,
and the music that resulted isn’t always a balanced blend of the two. But when the mixture is right,
Wrong Way Up has a playful, infectious charm.

The album was recorded at Eno’s home studio in Suffolk, England, and utilized his circle of play¬
ers (though Cale’s guitarist Dave Young appears on several songs). “By the time I got there to do the

record, Brian had already done the drum tracks,” says Cale. “They were fantastic — he wrote some
really ferocious parts. That saved us a lot of time, and it all went along from there.” Still, there was
some disharmony: “Brian took on the responsibility of being the host, the record company, the artist,
and the producer. And I was an artist as well. We’re both loners, we’re both eccentric, and neither one
wants to be in the position of being the host to the other.”

Certain tracks reflect both artists’ sensibilities more equally than others. The sleek, ultradance-
able “One Word” fuses Cale and Eno’s styles quite nicely. “Cordoba” — a pensive narrative set
against an atmospheric backdrop — wouldn’t be out of place on a Cale solo project.

Wrong Way Up was released after an even more historic reunion album appeared: the Lou
Reed/John Cale tribute to Andy Warhol, Songs For Drella. Released by Sire in the spring of 1990, it
contained the first collaborations between the two since Cale left the Velvets in 1968. They had been
cocommissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music to create a thematic work on the life and career of 4±.
their manager/producer/mentor, and they applied themselves fully to the task.

Cale recalls cowriting Songs For Drella (the title refers to a nickname of Warhol’s) with Reed over
a ten-day period in December 1988: “Lou and I are very efficient — once we’ve gotten down to it, it just
goes. We spent a lot of time reminiscing about Andy; I’d remember things that he didn’t remember,
he’d remember things that I didn’t, and we threw everything into the pot. And I think he tape-recorded
all of the writing sessions.” John composed on piano in the early stages, as he and Lou bandied words
about and stitched together snatches of Warhol sayings that came to mind.

There’s some dispute as to how much Cale was responsible for Drella’ s lyrics as they appeared
in final form. Friction between the two old bandmates was probably inevitable — “There had to be a lot
of water under the bridge there,” John admits. What is clear when listening to Songs For Drella is that
the finished product is very much the work of both artists. The echoes of the Velvets in their prime are

“You have to
prepare yourself

you can’t always be off-
thegcuff. This penchant
for constant improvisation
— sometimes you win,
sometimes you lose.
When you have an
exanjple of something
that was prepared
= beforehand, like Paris
1919 , and seen through
carefully, then that’s its
own advertisement for
that process, being really
rewarding.”

strongly evident in the use of repetition, distortion, and deceptively "primitive” song structures. What’s
most impressive is how vividly Andy comes back to life, with all his genius, cattiness, and loneliness
intact.

Cale takes the vocal spotlight on five compositions. Among them is “Trouble With Classicists”:
“Lou was saying something about my playing and I said, ‘Yeah, that’s the trouble with classicists. And
he said, ‘That’s the trouble with classicists is....’ It all came out of a joke.” From there, Cale and Reed
transposed it from a commentary on music into one on painting from Warhol s point of view.

“Faces And Names” also features Cale on lead vocals, as Reed plays a bluesy guitar line behind
him. “This kind of dealt with the publicity angle of things, and what Andy’s silkscreens had turned into,”
John notes. “They were his staple; he was getting $30,000 for pictures of socialites and the wives of
Japanese industrialists.”

Songs For Drella met with a generally favorable critical reception. Cale was disappointed, though,
that he and Reed didn’t take the stage presentation of the songs on the road. It would be three more
years before John and Lou would embark on a full-fledged tour together, as part of an all-but-miraculous
reunion of the original Velvet Underground.

Cale, Reed, Maureen Tucker, and Sterling Morrison picked up their creative thread after a quarter-
century break and plunged into a summer ’93 tour across Europe. Their Live MCMXCIII album (Sire,
1993) proved how potent the combination of these four musicians still could be. Sadly, the group splin¬
tered once again before they could perform in the U.S.

For Moe Tucker, the tour brought the added pleasure of growing closer to Cale after all those
years apart. “I think John has changed the most of all of us,” she says. “We were always friends, but
he’s a lot less distant now, and easier to be around. We’ve both grown up, I suppose. I really enjoyed
his company on this tour. And I was delighted to see what a good father he is. He’s great with Eden —

she and John’s wife came to Europe with us for a few weeks, and he was so proud of hisldaughter.”

Cale has been in a productive mood of late. His recent releases include a solo live album,
Fragments Of A Rainy Season (Hannibal/Rykodisc, 1992), and the Fjlfncn 1 film soundtracks Paris
S’Eveille (1991) and La Naissance DeM’ArnQur ( 1993) . As these notes are being written, he’s wrapping
up The Last Day On Earth (a co§ab<ggtiQP^vith singer/songwriter Bobby Neuwirth) and has plans to
st^a solo album later in ’94. There’s a multimedia stage production in the works as well.

Wherever he goes from here it will no doubt be rewarding to follow* From vic^pbeH^ffanquility
and back again, his work has never flinched, even when it has teetered on the brink. For someone who
sang that “FearTH a man’s best friend,” John Cale has displayed a rare degree of artistic courage.

— Barry Alfonso
January 1994

Special thanks to John Cale, Maureen Tucker, La Monte Young, Marion Zazeela, Chris Spedding,
Joe Bidewell, and Bill Bentley for their time, encouragement, and insight.

Photo: HUGH BROWN

“I’d

learned
that there

trying to
satisfy whatever popular taste
was around at the time. I'd
always figured that the amount of
time between the time you write
a song and the time that it sees
the light of day on the stands is
always too long — anything can
happen.”

was n
point ,

Compilation Produced for Release by: BARRY ALFONSO & GEOFF GANS

Special Thanks to: JOHN CALE

Project Coordination: TED MYERS

Discographical Annotation: GARY PETERSON

Remastering: BILL INGLOT & KEN PERRY

Art Direction: GEOFF GANS
(hommage a Ruscha)

Design: GEOFF GANS & RACHEL GUTEK

Inside Front Cover Photo: LISA LAW
Inside Back Cover Photo: GREG ALLEN
Back Cover Photo (Inset): HUGH BROWN

Photos on pages 13, 16 & 17: MICK ROCK © 1974, 1975, 1994

Incidental Detail Photography: RACHEL GUTEK & GEOFF GANS

Project Assistance: HUGH BROWN, SIG, JOHN GUARNIERI, KEVIN LAFFEY,
TOM RECCHION, RON SPENCER, CHRIS WHENT, M.C. KOSTEK,

STEVE WEBBON, MICHAEL MAZZARELLA, NAT BREWSTER, KATE SIMON

John Cale wishes to thank:

JEAN-MICHEL REUSSER, TACTIC MUSIC, PARIS.

MARK VERNON, FIREBRAND MANAGEMENT, LONDON.

MIKE SCHELLER, HOLLYWOOD CONCERTS, FRANKFURT.

CHRIS WHENT, RISE AND EDEN CALE, HUGH BROWN, BILLY NAME,
STEPHEN SHORE, GERARD MALANGA, KATE SIMON, GEOFF GANS

© 1994 Rhino Records Inc.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning”

— John Cage

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SEDUCING DOWN THE DOOR: A COLLECTION 1970-1990

JOHN

C A L E

Rhin° Records Inc. • Refer to P